Women’s History Month: How Gambo Sawaba was imprisoned 16 times fighting for women’s rights in northern Nigeria

The legend of Gambo Sawaba began in the streets of Zaria, modern-day Kaduna state, where a young girl, barely tall enough to look her opponents in the eye, threw herself into fights that weren’t hers.

“I have bought this fight from you,” she would tell the weaker child before taking up their battle. Her clothes were so often torn that her mother sewed them from tarpaulin, hoping they would last longer.

The girl who refused to stand by and watch injustice later grew into a woman who lived and suffered, for that same cause. Arrested 16 times, beaten, and her hair shaved with broken bottles, her body bore the scars of the fight she never stopped waging. This is the story of Gambo Sawaba, a woman who fought for northern Nigeria’s women when no one else would.

A REBEL WAS BORN

Gambo Sawaba was born Hajaratu Amarteifio on February 15, 1933, in Zaria. Her father, Isa Amarteifio, was a Ghanaian immigrant who had arrived in Nigeria in 1910 to work with the Nigerian Railway Corporation. A graduate of the Ghana School of Survey, he converted to Islam after settling in Zaria and adopted the name Isa. Her mother, Fatima, was a Nupe woman from Lavun LGA in present-day Niger state, a widow with three children from a previous marriage before marrying Isa.

Together, Isa and Fatima had six children, with Hajaratu being the fifth. Following Hausa’s naming customs, she was called “Gambo” because she was born after a set of twins, a name that would later become synonymous with her indomitable spirit.

Gambo’s early years were shaped by a modest upbringing in the Sabon Gari area of Zaria. She attended the Native Authority Primary School in Tudun Wada, where she received a basic education in a colonial system that offered limited opportunities for girls, especially in northern Nigeria.  Tragedy struck early in Gambo’s life. Her father died in 1943 when she was just 10 years old, followed by her mother’s death three years later in 1946, and her formal education came to an abrupt end.

With no parents to guide her, Gambo was thrust into the harsh realities of the northern Nigerian society. At the age of 13, she was married off to Abubakar Bello, a World War II veteran. The marriage, arranged in line with prevailing customs, produced one child, a daughter named Bilikisu. But everything ended abruptly when Abubakar abandoned Gambo during her pregnancy and never returned. This early experience of abandonment and the burdens of young motherhood fueled her later resolve to challenge practices like child marriage.

Subsequent marriages proved equally tumultuous. One notable union was with Hamidu Gusau, a relationship marked by frequent violent confrontations. Gambo married at least twice more in her lifetime, but her personal life remained secondary to her growing commitment to social and political change.

POLITICAL AWAKENING

Gambo’s political awakening came at 17, a remarkable feat given her limited education and the repressive socio-political climate of northern Nigeria under British colonial rule. In 1950, she joined the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), an opposition party founded by Aminu Kano that championed the rights of the talakawa (common people) against the conservative Northern People’s Congress (NPC), which was backed by the British colonial authorities and the region’s powerful emirs.

For Gambo, the choice was clear. She joined NEPU’s women’s wing and quickly distinguished herself as a fearless organizer in Zaria, where she became one of the party’s earliest female members. Her boldness was evident during a political lecture in Zaria when, in a room full of hesitant men silenced by fear of reprisal, Gambo climbed onto the podium to speak out. It was during this period that Aminu Kano, her mentor and NEPU’s leader, bestowed upon her the name “Sawaba,” meaning “freedom” or “redemption” in Hausa, a title she earned after being elected president of NEPU’s women’s wing in 1952 at the age of 19.

Gambo’s activism focused on issues that directly affected northern women: child marriage, forced labour, unfair taxation, and the denial of education and political participation.  Her efforts to mobilise women put her at odds with the NPC-dominated native authorities and colonial powers, marking the beginning of a lifetime of persecution.

IMPRISONMENT AND TORTURE

Gambo Sawaba’s first arrest occurred in 1952 in Kano, where she was actively mobilising support for NEPU.  Her efforts included engaging with women in purdah, those observing social seclusion, by visiting them in their homes to discuss political matters. This approach displeased the Native Authority in Kano, leading to her arrest and trial before the conservative Alkali (magistrates) court on charges of “drawing out women who were in purdah”. She was subsequently convicted and sentenced to three months in prison. This was the first of 16 documented imprisonments, the most of any Nigerian woman politician in history.

Over the years, she faced extreme punishments. Her hair was shaved with broken bottles; she was stripped naked and flogged in prison; and she endured physical assaults by police and NPC enforcers known as Yan Mahaukita. Yet, she famously declared, “If I don’t know book, I know rights… I have not been a member of any House of Assembly (legislature). I have not held any office except that I was a member of the House of Prison.”

Gambo’s influence grew as she travelled to Abeokuta in 1950 to meet Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a prominent women’s rights activist in southern Nigeria whose campaigns against taxation and colonial rule inspired her. Under Ransome-Kuti’s mentorship and through NEPU’s political school, Gambo honed her skills, sometimes disguising herself as a man to evade arrest or attend restricted meetings.

THE FIGHT FOR NORTHERN WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE

While women in southern, eastern and western Nigeria won limited rights to vote in the 1950s, the ruling NPC told their northern counterparts that their franchise would come “only in God’s time”. Gambo and her comrades refused to wait.

They marched to the office of Ahmadu Bello, the regional premier, demanding suffrage for northern women. He promised to consider it, but nothing changed. Gambo once declared that if not for the restriction on women contesting elections, she would have stood against Ahmadu Bello in his own constituency.

It wasn’t until 1976, more than two decades after Gambo’s first protest, that northern women finally won the right to vote.

After NEPU dissolved in 1966 amid military rule, Gambo continued her political journey. During Nigeria’s Second Republic (1979–1983), she joined the Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP), a successor to NEPU’s ideals, and rose to the position of deputy national chairman.

Beyond politics, Gambo engaged in small-scale trading and later worked as a contractor in the 1970s, using her earnings to support charitable causes. She became a philanthropist, focusing on the welfare of homeless children, the poor, and the mentally ill. Her home in Zaria often served as a refuge for those in need, cementing her status as a community pillar.

In the early 1990s, during Nigeria’s third republic, she briefly aligned with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) from 1991 to 1993, continuing her advocacy until political instability again disrupted civilian governance.

A LIFE OF SACRIFICE

Despite her decades of activism, Gambo never won an election. Disillusioned with Nigeria’s shifting political landscape, she retired in 1998.

“Politics in the country has lost its flavour and is no longer a game of ideology, but a game of self-aggrandisement”, she was quoted as saying while declaring her retirement.

At home, she was a nurturer. Her daughter, Bilikisu, remembers a mother who loved to cook, adopted children, and turned their home into a refuge for those in need.

Even in her final days, she held on to hope. “She never stopped believing in a better Nigeria, especially for women,” Bilikisu recalled.

Gambo died on October 14, 2001, at the age of 68, at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria after a prolonged illness. The federal government of Nigeria honoured her in 2012 by featuring her portrait on a proposed (but unissued) N5,000 note alongside Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and Margaret Ekpo.

The Gambo Sawaba General Hospital and the hall named after her in the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria stand as a tribute to her contributions, as does her lasting influence on Northern women’s political participation.

Today, she is remembered as northern Nigeria’s fiercest female activist, a woman who refused to be silenced. She never lived to see the full rights she fought for, but she laid the foundation for the generations that followed.

Her life serves as a reminder that true change often comes with sacrifice and that one person’s voice can indeed make a difference. Gambo’s fight remains as relevant this women’s history month, as it was in her time.